The burning of the Reichstag (parliament) building in Berlin, on the night of February 27, 1933, was a key even in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship and widely believed to have been contrived by the newly formed Nazi government itself.

On February 28, 1933, the day after the fire, Hitler’s dictatorship began with the enactment of a decree “for the Protection of the People and the State,” which dispensed with all constitutional protection of political, personal, and property rights.